Horses in the war at Bar-sur-Aube

The excavation first uncovered 45 meters of a long, zig-zag shaped trench that extended beyond the excavation limits. Inside this narrow space more than forty horse carcasses were found. Twelve of them were carefully excavated along 12 meters. These very corpulent draft horses were piled on top of each other and dragged to the edge of the trench before being carefully lowered into this improvised pit. The head of each animal was placed on the chest of the preceding one and the limbs stretched toward to the center of the excavation. The regularity of this position indicates that great attention, or even respect, was paid to these horses. They were all buried within a short period of time. Some still had their horseshoes on, while others were killed on the ground by a blow behind the ears. The only artifacts found in the trenches are horseshoes and harness buckle.

What tragic event could be associated with this tomb?

From a historic perspective, the archaeologists immediately think of the battlefields of the Napoleon wars. The battle of Bar-sur-Aube took place on 27 February 1814 and confronted the French forces and the “armée de Bohème” (an Austrian, Russian and Bavarian coalition), on a field located in  Ailleville, only 1 kilometer west of the excavation.

Most of the forces present were composed of artillery batteries on horseback and the Kellermann cavalry division lost more than 400 men in a single assault against the Russian defenses. However, this hypothesis is not supported by the zig-zag shape of the trenches, which does not correspond to a movement war of the early 19th century. A second hypothesis is based on the presence at Bar-sur-Aube of the headquarters of the future Marshall Joffre in 1914. The city could thus have been secured by fortification lines, possibly including these military trenches installed a few hundred meters ahead of one of the mains doors to the city (the Notre-Dame door). Wounded horses arriving from the front, located a few dozen kilometers to the north, would thus have been cared for in a veterinary hospital specifically devoted to these unfortunate war companions (Blue Cross). Meanwhile, a detailed study of written documents, a study of the bones and the burial conditions of the carcasses favors a third hypothesis, which is that these are the civil defense trenches installed during the Second World War.

The presence of a site for horse requisition by the occupation troops and a German veterinary hospital (Pferdelazareth) at Bar-sur-Aube en 1940-41 have also been demonstrated. The trauma suffered by the horses did not correspond to consequences of a bombing, or to those of an intentional extermination, but probably to those of a fire. No inhabitant present during this period has any memory of this incident, but, in the last days of the German occupation the civil population of Bar-sur-Aube had to deal with many other upheavals.